XVIII. Still as the lips that closed in death, As down the deadly blow descended On him whose life and love thus ended; Pierced through with forced and sullen shock, Save one-what cleaves the silent air So madly shrill-so passing wild? That, as a mother's o'er her child, Through Azo's palace-lattice driven, In madlier accents rose despair; XIX. Hugo is fallen; and, from that hour, At least the knight's who died that day. Like dust beneath the coffin lid: Whether in convent she abode, And won to heaven her dreary road, By blighted and remorseful years Of scourge, and fast, and sleepless tears; Or if she fell by bowl or steel, For that dark love she dared to feel; Or if, upon the moment smote, She died by tortures less remote; Like him she saw upon the block, With heart that shared the headman's shock, In quicken'd brokenness that came, In pity, o'er her shatter'd frame, None knew-and none can ever know: But whatsoe'er its end below, Her life began and closed in wo! XX. And Azo found another bride, And never smile his brow unbended; And o'er that fair broad brow were wrought The intersected lines of thought; Those furrows which the burning share Which the Soul's war doth leave behind. Had only pass'd a just decree; That they had wrought their doom of ill; If lopp'd with care, a strength may give, All greenly fresh and wildly free: The waving boughs with fury scathe, And never more a leaf reveals. [In Parisina there is no tumult or stir. It is all sadness, out, and the whole wrapped in a rich and redundant veil of and pity, and terror. There is too much of horror, perhaps, poetry, where every thing breathes the pure essence of in the circumstances; but the writing is beautiful through- genius and sensibility.-JEFFREY.] THE PRISONER OF CHILLON: A FABLE.' SONNET ON CHILLON ETERNAL Spirit of the chainless Mind!? To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom, And Freedom's fame finds wings on every wind. Chillon thy prison is a holy place, And thy sad floor an altar-for 'twas trod, Until his very steps have left a trace Worn, as if thy cold pavement were a sod, 1 When this poem was composed, I was not sufficiently aware of the history of Bonnivard, or I should have endeavored to dignify the subject by an attempt to celebrate his courage and his virtues. With some account of his life I have been furnished, by the kindness of a citizen of that republic, which is still proud of the memory of a man worthy of the best age of ancient freedom : François de Bonnivard, fils de Louis de Bonnivard, originaire de Seysel et Seigneur de Lunes, naquit en 1496. II fit ses études à Turin: en 1510 Jean Aimé de Bonnivard, son oncle, lui résigna le Prieuré de St. Victor, qui aboutissait aux murs de Genève, et qui formait un bénéfice considerable. "Ce grand homme-(Bonnivard mérite ce titre par la force de son âme, la droiture de son cœur, la noblesse de ses intentions, la sagesse de ses conseils, le courage de ses demarches, l'étendue de ses connaissances et la vivacité de son esprit,)-ce grand homme, qui excitera l'admiration de tous ceux qu'une vertu héroïque peut encore émouvoir, inspirera encore la plus vive reconnaissance dans les cœurs des Génévois qui aiment Genève. Bonnivard en fut toujours un des plus fermes appuis pour assurer la liberté de notre République, il ne craignit pas de perdre souvent la sienne; il oublia son repos; il méprisa ses richesses; il ne negligea rien pour affermir le bonheur d'une patrie qu'il honora de son choix: dès ce moment il la chérit comme le plus zélé de ses citoyens: il la servit avec l'intrépidité d'un heros, et il écrivit son Histoire avec la naïveté d'un philosophe et la chaleur d'un patriote. "Il dit dans le commencement de son Histoire de Genève, que dès qu'il eut commencé de lire l'histoire des nations, il se sentit entraîné par son goût pour les Républiques, dont il épousa toujours les intérêts: c'est ce goût pour la liberté qui lui fit sans doute adopter Genève pour sa patrie. "Bonnivard, encore jeune, s'annonça hautement comme le défenseur de Genève contre le Duc de Savoye et l'Evêque. "En 1519, Bonnivard devient le martyr de sa patrie. Le Duc de Savoye étant entré dans Genève avec cinq cent hommes, Bonnivard craint le ressentiment du Duc ; il voulut se retirer à Fribourg pour en éviter les suites; mais il fut trahi par deux hommes qui l'accompagnaient, et conduit par ordre du Prince à Grolée, où il resta prisonnier pendant deux ans. Bonnivard était malheureux dans ses voyages: comme ses malheurs n'avaient point ralenti son zèle pour Genève, il était toujours un ennemi redoutable pour ceux qui la menaçaient, et par conséquent il devait être exposé à leurs coups. Il fut rencontré en 1530 sur le Jura par des voleurs, qui le dépouillèrent, et qui le mirent encore entre les mains du Duc de Savoye : ce Prince le fit enfermer dans le Château de Chillon, où il resta sans être interrogé jusques en 1536; il fut alors delivré par les Bernois, qui s'emparerent du Pays de Vaud. "Bonnivard, en sortant de sa captivité, eut le plaisir de trouver Genève libre et réformée: la République s'empressa de lui témoigner sa reconnaissance, et de dédommager des maux qu'il avait soufferts; elle le reçut Bourgeois de la ville au mois de Juin, 1536; elle lui donna la maison habitée autrefois par le Vicaire-Général, et elle lui assigna une pension de deux cent écus d'or tant qu'il séjournerait à Genève. Il fut admis dans le Conseil de Deux-Cent en 1537. "Bonnivard n'a pas fini d'être utile: après avoir travaillé à rendre Genève libre, il réussit à la rendre tolerante. Bonnivard engagea le Conseil à accorder aux ecclésiastiques et By Bonnivard-May none those marks efface! For they appeal from tyranny to God. THE PRISONER OF CHILLON.' I. My hair is gray, but not with years, Nor grew it white In a single night,* As men's have grown from sudden fears: aux paysans un tems suffisant pour examiner les propositions qu'on leur faisait; il réussit par sa douceur: on preche toujours le Christianisme avec succès quand on le prèche avec charit. "Bonnivard fut savant: ses manuscrits, qui sont dans la Bibliothèque publique, prouvent qu'il avait bien lu les auteurs classiques Latins, et qu'il avait approfondi la théologie et l'histoire. Ce grand homme aimait les sciences, et il croyait qu'elles pouvaient faire la gloire de Genève; aussi il ne négligea rien pour les fixer dans cette ville naissante; en 1551 il donna sa bibliothèque au public; elle fut le commencement de notre bibliothèque publique; et ces livres sont en partie les rares et belles editions du quinzième siècle qu'on voit dans notre collection. Enfin, pendant la même année, ce bon patriote institua la République son héritière, a condition qu'elle employerait ses biens à entretenir le collège dont on projettait la fondation. "Il parait que Bonnivard mourut en 1570; mais on ne peut l'assurer, parcequ'il y a une lacune dans le Nécrologe depuis le mois de Juillet, 1570, jusques en 1571.” [Lord Byron wrote this beautiful poem at a small inn, in the little village of Ouchy, near Lausanne, where he happened in June, 1816, to be detained two days by stress of weather; "thereby adding," says Moore, "one more deathless association to the already immortalized localities of the Lake."] 2 [In the first draught, the sonnet opens thus- Brightest in dungeons, Liberty! thou art, To fetters, and the damp vault's dayless gloom, Their country conquers with their martyrdom."] 9 ["I will tell you something about Chillon.' A Mr. De Luc, ninety years old, a Swiss, had it read to him, and is pleased with it-so my sister writes. He said that he was with Rousseau at Chillon, and that the description is perfectly correct. But this is not all; I recollected something of the name, and find the following passage in The Confessions,' vol. iii. p. 247, liv. viii. De tous ces amusemens celui qui me plut davantage fut une promenade autour du Lac, que je fis en bateau avec De Luc père, sa bru, ses deur fils, et ma Therese. Nous mimes sept jours à cette tournée par le plus beau temps du monde. J'en gardai le vif sou- | venir des sites, qui m'avaient frappé à l'autre extrémité du Lac, et dont je fis la description quelques années après, dans La Nouvelle Heloise." This nonagerian, De Luc, must be one of the deux fils.' He is in England, infirm, but still in faculty. It is odd that he should have lived so long, and not wanting in oddness, that he should have made this voyage with Jean Jacques, and afterwards, at such an interval, read a poem by an Englishman (who made precisely the same circumnavigation) upon the same scenery." -Byron Letters, April 9, 1817. Jean Andre de Luc, F. R. S., died at Windsor, in the July following. He was born in 1726, at Geneva, was the author of many geological works, and corresponded with most of the learned societies of Europe.] 4 Ludovico Sforza, and others.-The same is asserted of My limbs are bow'd, though not with toil, And mine has been the fate of those Proud of persecution's rage;2 Their belief with blood have seal'd; For the God their foes denied ; Of whom this wreck is left the last. II. There are seven pillars of Gothic mould, For in these limbs its teeth remain, With some new hope or legend old, But even these at length grew cold. A grating sound—not full and free I was the eldest of the three, And to uphold and cheer the rest I ought to do and did my bestAnd each did well in his degree. The youngest, whom my father loved, Because our mother's brow was given To him-with eyes as blue as heaven, For him my soul was sorely moved: Its sleepless summer of long light, The snow-clad offspring of the sun : And thus he was as pure and bright, And in his natural spirit gay, With tears for naught but others' ills, V. The other was as pure of mind, And so perchance in sooth did mine: Had follow'd there the deer and wolf; VI. Lake Leman lies by Chillon's walls: A thousand feet in depth below Its massy waters meet and flow; Thus much the fathom-line was sent From Chillon's snow-white battlement," Which round about the wave inthrals: Villeneuve, which last is at one extremity of the Lake of Geneva. On its left are the entrances of the Rhone, and opposite are the heights of the Meillerie and the range of Alps above Boveret and St. Gingo. Near it, on a hill behind, is a torrent: below it, washing its walls, the lake has been fathomed to the depth of 800 feet, French measure: within it are a range of dungeons, in which the early reformers, and subsequently prisoners of state, were confined. Across one of the vaults is a beam black with age, on which we were informed that the condemned were formerly executed. In the cells are seven pillars, or, rather, eight, one being half merged in the wall; in some of these are rings for the fet. ters and the fettered: in the pavement the steps of Bonni vard have left their traces. He was confined here severa. I said my nearer brother pined, VIII. But he, the favorite and the flower, Most cherish'd since his natal hour, years. It is by this castle that Rousseau has fixed the catastrophe of his Heloise, in the rescue of one of her children by Julie from the water; the shock of which, and the illness produced by the immersion, is the cause of her death. The château is large, and seen along the lake for a great distance. The walls are white.-["The early history of this castle," says Mr. Tennant, who went over it in 1821, is, I believe, involved in doubt. By some historians it is said to be built in the year 1120, and according to others, in the year 1236; but by whom it was built seems not to be known. It is said, however, in history, that Charles the Fifth, Duke of Savoy, stormed and took it in 1536; that he there found great hidden treasures, and many wretched beings pining away their lives in these frightful dungeons, amongst His mother's image in fair face, I call'd, for I was wild with fear; whom was the good Bonnivard. On the pillar to which this unfortunate man is said to have been chained, I observed, cut out of the stone, the name of one whose beautiful poem has done much to heighten the interest of this dreary spot, and will, perhaps, do more towards rescuing from oblivion the names of Chillon' and Bonnivard,' than all the cruel sufferings which that injured man endured within its damp and gloomy walls."] 1["But why withhold the blow ?-he died."-MS.] 2 ["To break or bite."-MS.] [The gentle decay and gradual extinction of the youngest life is the most tender and beautiful passage in the poem.—JEFFREY.] IX. What next befell me then and there For all was blank, and bleak, and gray, It was not even the dungeon-light, And fixedness-without a place; There were no stars-no earth-no time— No check-no change-no good-no crime- Which neither was of life nor death; A sea of stagnant idleness, Blind, boundless, mute, and motionless! X. A light broke in upon my brain,- I was the mate of misery; And tamer than upon the tree; I ne'er shall see its likeness more: And cheering from my dungeon's brink, Had brought me back to feel and think. I know not if it late were free, Or broke its cage to perch on mine, Sweet bird! I could not wish for thine! Or if it were, in winged guise, A visitant from Paradise; "I saw them with their lake below, And their three thousand years of snow."-MS.] Between the entrances of the Rhone and Villeneuve, not far from Chillon, is a very small island; the only one I could For-Heaven forgive that thought! the while And then 'twas mortal-well I knew, A single cloud on a sunny day, When skies are blue, and earth is gay. XI. A kind of change came in my fate, My brothers' graves without a sod; XII. I made a footing in the wall, It was not therefrom to escape, For I had buried one and all, Who loved me in a human shape; And the whole earth would henceforth be A wider prison unto me; No child-no sire-no kin had I, No partner in my misery; I thought of this, and I was glad, For thought of them had made me mad; But I was curious to ascend To my barr'd windows, and to bend XIII. I saw them-and they were the same, The only one in view; A small green isle, it seem'd no more, perceive, in my voyage round and over the lake, within its circumference. It contains a few trees, (I think not above three,) and from its singleness and diminutive size has a peculiar effect upon the view. |